Neet-like entrance test for engineering likely to be held

New Delhi: In a major educational reform that could provide relief to lakhs of students, the Narendra Modi government is likely to announce the setting up of a national testing agency for conducting a common entrance test for all higher educational technical institutions across the country. Finance minister Arun Jaitley may make an announcement regarding this in the upcoming Union Budget on February 1.

Sources said the agency will conduct a common entrance test for all engineering institutes across the country from the 2018 academic session. With this, the Union human resource development ministry is aiming to bring in transparency to the admission procedure and also ease out pressure on students who appear for multiple exams.

Currently, several agencies like AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education), IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), CBSE (Central Board of School Education), Common Aptitude Test (Cat), Gate (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering), NET (National Eligibility Exam) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) conduct their own examinations for their respective courses, which usually cause inconvenience to students and parents alike.

The test is likely to be modeled on the recently introduced national eligibility-cum-entrance exam (Neet) for entry into medical colleges.